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The new rebranding campaign by Domino’s has achieved something truly remarkable- it has made me want to eat Domino’s pizza. As marketers, it can be easy to watch brands like Nike, McDonald’s, and Apple coast their way to brand dominance. But it is much more difficult to resuscitate a failing brand, and I admire those who do it without tricks or gimmicks. Ok, call Domino’s full-on effort to improve its product a bit gimmicky. But, like the brilliant Old Spice Guy commercial, it takes a once-popular product now considered very passé, and rebrands it. And it does so using the essentials of social media marketing.

Domino’s has convened focus groups of people who are not fans of its pizza, listened to their feedback, and implemented changes to its recipe. They have since gone to great lengths to ask consumers to provide feedback on their Domino’s experience, and taken skeptics to the dairies and tomato farms where their toppings are produced (for the purposes of his article, we’ll leave aside the controversy surrounding the Department of Agriculture boosting cheese production by encouraging Domino’s to put more cheese in its pizza. We’re looking at marketing, not government cheese.). Surprise! Domino’s is listening.

Yes, they show the most critical members of the focus group having their concerns personally addressed; the customer in Minnesota who sent in a picture of his too-cheesy pizza stuck to the top of the pizza box is personally assured by the CEO of Domino’s that it will NEVER happen again; and focus group participants who wonder aloud where Domino’s pizza toppings come from are told that-voila!- they are in the middle of the dairy and tomato farm, respectively, where Domino’s ingredients grow in the Earth. Now, these are all TV commercials in constant rotation. But they all take from rule number one of social media marketing: listen to your customers.

Starting a corporate Twitter account is one thing; starting a corporate Twitter account to respond to customer complaints is another thing. It is good to see a brand willing to revamp its product to improve lagging sales. There are no spokespeople, no taglines, no gimmicks (certainly no disgusting cheesy bites like at Pizza Hut. Yuck). Just a pizza chain telling customers it is listening to them and using their feedback to actively improve its product and service. It’s refreshing to see. And it may even make a convert out of me.